Saturday, May 28, 2005

So, you've traced your lineage back twenty or thirty generations, tracked down every available fact and rumor about your ancestors, and exhausted the archives of five countries. Think you're done?

National Geographic, IBM, and others, have launched the Genographic Project, aimed at tracking the spread of homo sapiens around the globeand are inviting you to participate. With $99 and a cheek swab, you can follow the travels of your DNA through the millennia. Each male participant will have his direct paternal line traced, and each woman her maternal line.

This is not the same DNA analysis done by Family Tree DNA and other companies, and won't tell you how you're related to others who share your surname. It will tell you with what ethnic populations you share genetic markers, which may lead to interesting new genealogical possibilities.